Europe 1 with AFP 06h00, October 30, 2021

Once again, France will change the time.

The change to winter time will take place tonight.

At three in the morning, the clocks will therefore go back 60 minutes: we will sleep (theoretically) an hour more.

But where is the plan to remove the device?

Small reminder of the facts, disturbed by the Covid-19.

Those who have to travel early Sunday on the occasion of the All Saints holidays will be able to sleep an hour longer: France returns this weekend to winter time, a controversial change whose removal, decided by the European Union, is lagging behind lengthways.

At three in the morning in the night from Saturday to Sunday the clocks will go back 60 minutes: we will therefore sleep (theoretically) "an hour more".

From Sunday, the early risers will have more daylight, but night will fall earlier.

When the Covid grants a deferment to the time change

This change - switching to winter time on the last Sunday in October, to summer time on the last Sunday in March - is much disputed for its effect on biological rhythms, in particular by doctors or relatives of 'school-age children.

ARCHIVES EUROPE 1 -

The day the time change was implemented

At the European level, where the time change regime was harmonized in 1980 (justified at the time by energy savings, the reality of which is debated) the European Commission had proposed in September 2018 to abolish it ... in 2019. But finally, the European Parliament voted in March 2019 to postpone it to 2021 and had to agree with the Council of Heads of State and Government on the modalities. 

But the Covid-19 crisis has gone through this, as well as the Brexit negotiations.

The European institutions had to do more urgently and the file is on hold, with no clear prospect for a resumption of discussions.

Why it's so hard to remove the daylight saving time

One of the complicated points to settle is to encourage countries to harmonize their choice of legal time (summer or winter), in order to avoid ending up with a patchwork of time zones between neighbors.

In France, an online consultation organized in early 2019 by the National Assembly had received more than two million responses, overwhelmingly (83.74%) in favor of the end of the time change.

More than 60% of those who participated claimed to have had "a negative or very negative experience" of the change.

As for the time to stay all year round, it was summer (in France UTC +2) which was preferred by 59% of participants.

Special feature of the current system: it does not concern the overseas territories, which never change time (with the exception of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, which is based on neighboring Canada).

Indeed, most of them are in latitudes where the differences in sunshine are low throughout the year, unlike in Europe.